YOUNG MEN IN HISTORY 



The Quiet Hour Series 

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How the Inner Light Failed 

By Newell Dwight Hillis, author of" A Man's Value 
to Society," etc. 

The Men Who Wanted to Help 

By Rev. J. G. K. McCIure, D.D. author of " Possi- 
bilities." 

Young Men By Rev. F. W. Gunsaulus, D.D. 

The Autobiography of St. Paul 

Faith Building By Rev. Wm. P. Merrill, D.D. 

The Dearest Psalm 

And The Model Prayer. By Henry Ostrom, D.D. 
The Life Beyond 

By Mrs. Alfred Gatty, author of " Parables from 

Nature." 

Mountain Tops with Jesus 

By Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D. \ 

A Life for a Life 

And other Addresses. By Prof. Henry -Drummond. 
With Portrait. 

Peace, Perfect Peace 

A Portion for the Sorrowing. By Rev. F. B. Meyer, 
B.A. 

Money 

Thoughts for God's Stewards. By Rev. Andrew 
Murray. 

Jesus Himself 

By Rev. Andrew Murray. With Portrait of the 
Author. 
Love Made Perfect By Rev. Andrew Murray. 

The Ivory Palaces of the King 

By Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. 
Christ Reflected in Creation. 

By D. C. McMillan. 

Fleming H. Revell Companv 
CHICAGO NEW YORK TORONTO 



Young Men in History 



Frank W. Gunsaulus, D.D. 




Chicago New York Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 



mdcccxcviii 



The Library 

of Congress 

WASHINGTON 



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Copyright, 1898 
By Fleminp H. Revell Company 




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Young Men in History 

Nothing is more certain than that 
the Bible is the young man's book, 
and its greatest story is the story of 
a young man. The scene in that 
story which would most affect young 
men, if they were to read the Bible 
as they would read Homer or Virgil, 
and especially if they were to read 
the Bible as they read any history of 
a great nation, such as was Israel, is 
the baptism of Jesus of Nazareth by 
his young friend and cousin, John. 

A life so organic and influential 
as that of Jesus of Galilee is sure to 
have the center of its forcefulness at 



Young Men in History 

such an epoch-making point as this. 
At that baptism scene the heavens 
truly opened upon the spirit and life 
of Christ. At that time, in His 
mighty growth, the dove descended 
from out the bosom of eternity. 
That dignity which in earlier days 
had said with innocent grandeur, 
" Wist ye not that I must be about 
My Father's business?" now real- 
ized itself, and became conscious 
through the objective responses of 
infinity unto Him as He received His 
baptism, saw the open heavens, and 
felt the footfalls of a divine destiny 
upon His uncovered head. 

So while every human being has 
a profound interest in this episode 
in Jesus' life, because His conscious 
6 



Young Men in History 

life-center seemed to have been first 
touched at that point, every young 
man must realize that there lies the 
most sublime scene unto him in all 
the picture gallery of the mighty 
past, a scene of such special signifi- 
cance in the history of our Master 
as to have invested every young 
man's life with an undreamed gran- 
deur and an unforeseen dignity. It 
must and shall stand as the most 
characteristic scene which has been 
left us as the heritage of young men 
of all time. For whatever else Jesus 
was, and there were altitudes and 
latitudes of being in Him of which 
we have only the feeblest apprehen- 
sion, He stands here as the typical 
young man. No speculation or 
7 



Young Men in History 

denial can take Him from our own 
ranks, my brothers. No heresies 
have been so profound, no literalism 
of any orthodoxy has been so heart- 
less, as to dethrone our hero and our 
saint. We claim Him to-day as our 
champion and our representative, 
even though, by being so near, He is 
also our Savior and our propitiation. 
To students and professors of di- 
dactics we say: " Exalt Him! Crown 
Him Lord of all ! Cover Him with 
names that we cannot understand! 
Add all the metaphysical lore you 
have dreamed unto all the research 
you have made, and decorate it with 
nomenclature so perplexing as to 
distance all the past! Nevertheless, 
Jesus is still the young man's own 



Young Men in History 

brother and the most splendid and 
greatest name on God's roll call of 
young men." 

When the roll call which men 
have written is read, it will be found 
that the young men have ruled the 
world. The oldest literatures have 
this record. The patriarchs un- 
folded the careers of boys into the 
conquests of old age. Kingdom and 
empire rode upon shoulders of young 
men, and their voices of enthusiasm 
and hope have sounded through 
many a black-breasted midnight and 
trumpeted the dawn through skies of 
thickest darkness. To causes that 
drooped they have come and added 
the raptures of hope; to enterprises 
that were sickening and faint, they 
9 



Young Men in History 

have brought the bounding power of 
new enthusiasm. To the dead they 
have brought life. Everything from 
the foundation of the world has been 
crying for " young blood," and the 
armies of the advance have gained 
the day at the arrival of " recruits," 
whose hope and earnestness have 
never been defeated. Age and ex- 
perience put themselves upon dying 
pillows made by young hands ; into 
young palms and upon young ears 
falls the meaning of all the past; and 
thus God has written the natural 
dignity of the young man's life in 
the eternal statute book of the uni- 
verse. It makes the young ever- 
more the custodian of the old, and 
grants discharges to the old that the 



Young Men in History 

young may seize their fallen muskets 
and push on to universal triumph. 

The reins of the future have been 
caught and held by young hands. At 
fifteen, Victor Hugo presented a 
poem to the academy; at sixteen^ 
Bossuet dazzled all who heard him 
by his eloquence, and Leigh Hunt 
was a prolific writer of verses. At 
seventeen, Michael Angelo had room 
in the palace of Lorenzo de Medici, 
Mozart had entranced the courts of 
Germany, Chateaubriand had a com- 
mission, Alexander Hamilton com- 
manded the attention of his country, 
Washington Irving delighted the 
readers of the Morning Chronicle, At 
eighteen Charles Spurgeon was pas- 
tor of a congregation ; Zwingli had 



Young Men in History 

read the New Testament so well as 
to doubt the authority of the church ; 
Grotius had published an edition of 
a Marcianus Capella." At nineteen 
Bach was organist at Armstadt; 
George Washington was a major; 
Webster had understood Espinasse ; 
Bryant had written "Thanatopsis; " 
George Stephenson was carrying in 
his brain an improved steam engine; 
Galileo was awake to the secret of 
the vibrations of the bronze lamp of 
Pisa cathedral. At twenty Robert 
Hall had an enthusiastic audience ; 
Alexander mounted the throne ; 
Weber was producing symphonies; 
Schelling had grappled with the phi- 
losophy of Kant ; Wallace had made 
assault against the arbitrary domi- 

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Young Men in History 

nance of Edward I. At twenty-one 
Beethoven had added a great name 
to music ; Kirke White had left his 
tremulous lyre ; William Wilber- 
force was in Parliament ; Mazzini 
was a prisoner in the citadel of Sa- 
vona. At twenty-two Alfred began 
one of the most magnificent reigns 
which England has ever seen ; his 
commander had made Wallenstein 
captain of the conquered fortress of 
Grau ; Hampden was in Parliament; 
Savonarola was robed with a splendid 
name ; Algernon Sydney had antago- 
nized Cromwell; Rossini had ex- 
cited an enthusiasm unequaled in the 
world of music ; Schiller's " Rob- 
bers" had been written; Richelieu 
was a Bishop ; Sir Phillip Sydney had 
*3 



Young Men in History 

been sent to complete the alliance of 
Protestantism. 

At twenty-three Servetus had found 
the intolerance of fanaticism ; Spi- 
noza was excommunicated; Rubens 
had " compounded from the splendor 
of Paul Veronese and the glory of 
Tinteretto, that florid system of 
mannered magnificence which is the 
element of his art and the principle 
of his school ; " Browning had writ- 
ten " Paracelsus ; " Sir Henry Vane 
had filled Boston with enthusiasm ; 
Richard Wagner carried with him 
the music of " Lohengrin \ " White- 
field was preaching in the Tower 
Chapel at London ; Bailey had writ- 
ten " Festus ; " Emmet had thrilled 
Ireland with pathetic patriotism ; 
H 



Young Men in History 

Arthur Hallam had furnished Ten- 
nyson with his greatest poem ; Hume 
had composed his treatise on a Hu- 
man Nature." At twenty-four Bis- 
marck was captain of King's Cav- 
alry; Alexander had taken Thebes 
and had crossed the Hellespont; 
Ariosto had made his muse support a 
family; Dante was a distinguished 
soldier and poet ; Ruskin had written 
u Modern Painters ; " Santa Ana had 
expelled the Royalist from Vera 
Cruz ; Rutledge was the orator for 
the colonies ; Scipio had commanded 
the armies of Rome ; Sheridan had 
written u The Rivals ; " Rienzi had 
come forth as the second Brutus ; 
Richter had charmed Herder. At 
twenty-five Bernard had changed 
*5 



Young Men in History 

" The Valley of Wormwood" into 
Clairvaux ; ./Eschylus was the great- 
est tragic poet of Greece ; Xavier 
lectured on Aristotle ; Coleridge had 
written "The Ancient Mariner ;" 
Huss had become a flaming herald 
for truth ; Southey had burned more 
verses than he published during life. 
At twenty-six Robespierre defended 
the work of Franklin against igno- 
rance ; Franklin, himself, wrote the 
wisdom of u Poor Richard ; " Roger 
Williams had aroused all the intoler- 
ance of New England ; Turner was 
a member of the Royal Academy ; 
Mark Antony was the hero of Rome. 
At twenty-seven Oberlin had a par- 
ish of 9,000 acres of rocky soil ; 
Daniel O'Connell had begun his 
16 



Young Men in History 

career as an agitator; Correggio had 
the commission to execute the fres- 
coes on the cupola of San Giovanni 
in Parma. 

At twenty-eight, Wordsworth was 
joint author with Coleridge \ War- 
wick was a distinguished soldier on 
the Scottish border ; Hannibal took 
Saguntum while Rome deliberated on 
its rescue ; Bacon was counsel ex- 
traordinary for the Queen ; Napo- 
leon had revolutionized Europe. At 
twenty-nine Robert Smith's elo- 
quence had moved British royalty ; 
Lord John Russell was a reformer 
in Parliament ; Milton was the au- 
thor of " Comus ; " Arminius had 
liberated Germany ; Cromwell had 
begun his work. At thirty, Rey- 
17 



Young Men in History 

nolds was the greatest portrait painter 
in England ; Da Vinci had said : " I 
will undertake any work in sculpture, 
in marble, in bronze, or in terra- 
cotta — likewise in painting I can do 
as well as any man, be he who he 
may." 

All these, with the thousands of 
others, are only some of the young 
men who have ruled the world. Their 
life work had been begun and its in- 
spiration had been gained. John 
Keats, Pitt, Summerfield, and Ma- 
caulayare only some of our fair names. 
Yet, my brothers, no one of these 
can stand as our perfect representa- 
tive. No scene in any life I have 
mentioned can be called a character- 
istic scene for that ideal voung man 
iS 



Young Men in History 

of which we dream. There, at the 
banks of Jordan stand the ages to 
look, beyond all heroism and all con- 
quest, upon that face rising out of 
that hour of consecration with the 
youth of his career all aglow with the 
splendor of God — the young Jesus 
beginning His mighty manhood with 
God. 

Jesus avoided no law of growth, 
no statute of the world, or order of 
nature, no sacrament of society or of 
God. He came upon the unspoken 
tendencies of the past, to speak them 
properly and truly. He came upon 
the bosom of the unfulfilled to fulfill 
it. To do that, He walked through 
our life. He came not to break it 
and to say: "It is nothing. ,, He 
19 



Young Men in History 

came to complete it, and to say : u It 
is everything, because divine." So 
human life was reconstituted, be- 
cause reorganized, by His having 
passed through it divinely. And the 
old law was again illustrated — a man 
leaves himself in what he does or 
touches truly. Human existence has 
been larger since Jesus took it up, 
kissed it in His life, and laid it down, 
lovingly in His death. It is a greater 
thing to have been a lawyer since 
Puffendorf, Selden, Otis, and Cock- 
burn. They have enlarged the defi- 
nition of lawyer. It is much more 
to be a good or great preacher since 
Robertson, Brooks, Beecher. They 
have added dignity to the work. It 
is more to be an artist since Meis- 



Young Men in History 

sonier and Corot ; more to be a 
singer since Jenny Lind ; more to be 
a hero since Havelock and Gordon ; 
more to be a man since any true soul 
has enlarged and enriched the idea of 
manhood, in himself. This, in a 
divine way, is the effect of Jesus' 
career upon all human life. And 
this enlarging of its significance, the 
improving of its dignity, is what Jesus 
did with the consecrating of His life 
to righteousness and duty in that 
glorious baptismal scene. 

Some method of consecration to 
life's great duties has made a place in 
all religions and in their ceremonies. 
And the various sacraments are a 
proof that, in all ages and places, 
within the consciousness of the race, 

21 



Young Men in History 

there is a peculiar recognition of the 
special fitness of youth for the serv- 
ices of God and the offices of hu- 
manity. There is no more charming 
study than the following up through 
all kinds of literature of the evolu- 
tion of the confessed dignity of a 
young man's life through these many 
forms. For, even before Jesus came, 
in every young Pericles, there pulsed 
the same distinctive elements which 
fit young men for the dignified busi- 
ness of opening new futures, and 
standing, in a sublime present, as the 
guardian of a hard-won past. These 
two, which we feel so keenly — a 
fullness of life which we call " en- 
thusiasm," and an affection for 
dreams of the future, which, roughly, 

22 



Young Men in History 

we call " hope," are constitutional 
in young men; and, added to those 
common faculties which are the race's 
being, they make the young man what 
he is. So that, in and of himself, 
there is a peculiar dignity in every 
young man here to-day. The capital 
of the race has not been computed 
and rightly estimated, if there has not 
been put among the greatest the fact 
that in every one of us it finds that 
peculiar love for the new and strik- 
ing, which has espoused enterprises 
and builded convoys unto it ; that 
ardent admiration of heroism which 
has turned the defeats of a great cause 
into victories ; that burning and 
abounding vitality which has rushed 
up the altar steps of the untried and 
23 



Young Men in History 

the unknown and made its edifice 
beyond the clouds ; that architectural 
passion which swung air castle after 
air castle into the void, rebuilded 
it again and again from fallen 
pieces and flat ruins, and builds yet, 
on foundations which no man saw, 
unto heights whereto no flood has 
swept. In these efforts alone do 
we see the eternal colors and forms 
which the buoyant soul of a young 
man takes on. 

Surveying calmly what distin- 
guishes a young man from one of 
riper years, we revolt as we look at 
that philosophy of a young man's life, 
born in the atmosphere of hopeless- 
ness and faithlessness, which proposes 
to keep a young man safe by " hold- 
24 



Young Men in History 

ing him down " until he gets " old 
enough to know better;* ' by repress- 
ing all his buoyancy and idealism 
until it grows sane and quiet; by 
fastening him to an old man's body 
of ideas until he shall be "broken 
in " to the serenity of a calmer life. 
That philosophy has been tried, and 
its ruins are everywhere. It is just 
about as sure to leave a man in ruins 
as all growth is to leave in ruins that 
which impedes it. If youth cannot 
air itself and go out in expression, 
it will explode and lay waste the 
premises. To avoid explosion, don't 
shut it up and drive nails into the 
doors, for the pounding will strike 
the explosive, and you will not live 
to look at the ruin. It is absurd; it 
25 



Young Men in History 

always was wicked faithlessness to 
God to think that vou must suppress 
and kill a boy to make anything out 
of him. If you hitch the body of 
some old man's theories to him, you 
will hear him crying: " Who shall 
deliver me from the body of this 
death? " And he will die or be de- 
livered. Deliverance is better than 
death. For the ideal young of many 
of our Sunday-school books and some 
men's minds is a dead boy. He has 
not vitality enough to be tempted. 
He is a boy of no opinions. He is 
supposed to " be still while other 
people talk" — no difference what 
fool is talking, or how much more 
he may know. His value seems to 
lie in his being an echo, not a voice. 
26 



Young Men in History 

Above all things, he must not do this 
and do that; and heaven only knows 
what he can and may do safely. 
Well, he is a dead weight and a 
stumbling block when he gets "of 
age." He is supposed to know 
nothing until he has been informed, 
and then he has information enough 
given to him to submerge a conti- 
nent. Take a hundred such men 
and you can pile them up like stacks 
of sawdust or like rails. This is the 
result of the philosophy of repression. 
Standing by this baptism scene, I 
discern the outlines of another phi- 
losophy of a young man's life. It is 
the philosophy of consecration and 
expression. Instead of repression, 
holding down, pushing into a corner 
27 



Young Men in History 

all the tumultuous forces of life, 
Jesus would carry it to the stream 
of divine glory, bury it in its current, 
and lift it out, to be a new power in 
the world, sent out like an evangel, 
in the freedom of universal atmos- 
phere, in the liberty of God's sky, to 
express this tumult in sweetest mu- 
sic, to body forth this, which, my 
brother, you and I have to express, 
or to kill, or to explode, into forms 
of philanthropy, devoted work for 
man and God. And that is why 
this scene is a part of our capital, 
. one of the spots where a voung man 
sees what he is, who he is, why he 
is so full of enthusiasm and hope, 
and what he is to do with it. 

What an enigma is a true young 

2S 



Young Men in History 

man to himself! He dreams more 
than Oriental dreams. He builds 
higher than Aladdin's palace. He 
wonders what to do with all his rush 
of life. People tell him to " be 
quiet. " Nothing can convince him 
that he can attempt too much. To 
his mind, everything depends upon 
his getting to work now, and his 
working all the time. Put him un- 
der a quiet, somnolent sky, let him 
calmly think it over, and what a 
waste he is, in all the universe, if he 
has no special outlook into the eter- 
nal, no avenue for himself into the 
realms above him, around him, be- 
fore him. This baptism scene is the 
brave and triumphant solution of the 
problem. It is the sketch, made in 
29 



Young Men in History 

the far past, for all time to come, of 
young manhood consecrated. Be- 
hold, the heavens open, the dove 
descends, the temporal is lying like 
a babe in the lap of the eternal; the 
young man's heart is with God, 
while the drops, shot through and 
through with the life and light of 
Jehovah, fall tremulously from His 
forehead, and the ripples of His bap- 
tism die away along the newly 
fretted shore. 

I therefore take the expression in 
all its simple grandeur, that, when 
this young Jew was thus consecrat- 
ing Himself unto the service of God 
and man, by the hands of another, 
the heavens of the ideal God's pur- 
pose and plan opened — the illimit- 
30 



Young Men in History 

able was seen overspanning all that 
had been limited; the infinitude of 
His hitherto finite life was made 
manifest, and the heavenwardness 
and Godwardness of consecrated 
human life were forever made evi- 
dent. And that, my brother, is what 
is always happening to any of us 
who will not begin our life work 
until we feel that over us have rolled 
the waves of some sacred influence, 
and within us has been born the 
ideal life. We want the opening 
of the heavens ; we want the de- 
scending dove. That scene in the 
life of Jesus was the discovery of 
life's importance. 

We feel enough of the earthliness 
of life. It is not very hard to find 
3i 



Young Men in History 

out that a man has a body. Hunger 
will make that revelation. It takes 
no royal teacher to make us believe 
in our hands, and feet, and ears, and 
eyes. A little "cold snap" or a 
heavily loaded table will open up 
all these facts, and most people un- 
derstand the importance of them. 
What we need is a revelation of the 
heavenliness of life. Thanks be 
unto God, to give our life in glad 
self surrender unto Him is to find 
heights in life that no kite of our 
thought ever could have discovered, 
and to bring to our notice great stars 
which we may civilize, which no 
telescope can reveal. The idea — 
nay, rather the fact — of an immor- 
tal destiny takes the iron mask from 
32 



Young Men in History 

the eyes and forehead of any soul. 
There is no firmament above one, 
after that discovery in God's love, 
but the infinite. 

This dome of bone, which we 
name our skull, at once becomes as 
large as the very heaven. Its 
edges touch the verge of all things. 
Its zenith strikes the high center of 
eternity. Under it move life currents 
which mirror back the stars of God. 
That is just the help of Christ's re- 
ligion to every other young man. 
Nothing can be ordinary in its at- 
mosphere. The heavens are opened 
above everything. No duty is small, 
because life itself is so great. Every 
due thing is due to God, who is all- 
loving, from man, whose possible 
33 



Young Men in History 

destiny is so great. That makes 
duty. Nothing is so strange as that 
men should talk about making a 
young man moral without making 
him religious. Suppose that we do 
not believe religiously, affectionately, 
in a divine destiny for us. What 
heart would we have for the stern 
moralities that shall make men of 
us? Why, if we shall not be al- 
lowed to rise into lofty and loftier 
manhood forever, why shall we be- 
gin the business at all ? It must end 
in failure. Above all such weari- 
some doubt, which the hope and en- 
thusiasm of a young man heartily 
despise, there is a ruling idea of a 
great future under the great God 
who aims at the greatness of man 
34 



Young Men in History 

and his consequent glory. Every 
line in life becomes sacred for the 
sake of the picture it helps to make; 
every string in the woof is dear for 
the sake of the dear figure it will 
hold when the Divine One is done 
weaving. 

Nothing but such a sentiment as 
this can answer to all this abounding 
enthusiasm and burning hope in you 
and me. They are the mute and 
tumultuous activity of our powers to 
be men after the heart of God. 
They are the rumbling fires, which, 
when let out of the caves, shall 
smelt the ore of the world for an- 
chors of civilization, for ironclads 
of progress ; for iron orators to 
speak revolutions in flame and can- 
35 



Young Men in History 

non balls, for fine strings in which 
reside celestial melodies, for threads 
of thought to tie up the world into 
unity, and fasten continent to conti- 
nent under the seas. 

Let none of us, my brothers, call 
our full and uncontrollable life a 
curse. This life, in vein and mus- 
cle, in nerve and bone, which you 
have to " keep down," is only your 
unused capital. It does not need 
repression, but consecration and ex- 
pression. It must not be pressed 
down else it will become infer- 
nal. It must be lifted up, then 
it will become supernal. The more 
you have of it, the greater are 
your possibilities. It is capital, bet- 
ter than bank stock. It must be the 
36 



Young Men in History 

elixir of life that you shall draw 
upon in old age. Gladstone and 
Bismarck draw from a youth they 
could once hardly control, and such 
people never get old nor fall behind 
the times. 

And the theory of Jesus, so far 
as we may find it, is that the more 
earnestness and hope one has, the 
more need he has of finding fit ave- 
nues for its expression. This bap- 
tism is the discovery of these ave- 
nues. I point you to Jesus as our 
representative, not only in the right 
use of these forces, but in the fact 
that He possessed them also. Oh, 
what enthusiasm had He ! It mounted 
beyond that of all others of the 
world's great men. 
37 



Young Men in History 

The baptism came. His enthu- 
siasm rose out of that consecration 
to bear on its mighty front the 
bleeding hearts of men, the suffer- 
ings of untold millions, the woes of 
the children of Adam, the cares of 
the ages, the defeats of all time. It 
rose to lead all the diversities of 
men, all the armies of humanity, all 
the devotion of mankind — it rose 
to lead them into the land of palms 
and laurels, whose vast territory is 
held in fee simple by redeemed hu- 
manity. His hope was the infinite 
dream of Plato enlarged into infinite 
proportions. It was the fancy sketch 
of the greatest made a fact and suf- 
fused with the life of the Son of 
God. That was what He became 
, 33 



Young Men in History 

after His consecration — did He not 
feel in His divine way, what are so 
earthly and human in us ? 

In that baptism Jesus realized 
man's place in the plan of the uni- 
verse. In our consecrated life we 
must realize our relations to God's 
life. You go out to-morrow into 
your clerkship, into your employer's 
bank, into your own business. I 
charge you, so give yourself in glad 
consecration to God to-day, that it 
shall seem as though the waves of 
the ideal life have touched you, and 
that wherever you stand, henceforth, 
you stand for the eternal God. Yon- 
der in Galilee is our ideal, my broth- 
ers ! He stands for God, wherever 
He is. He has the ellipse of God's 
39 



Young Men in History 

life passing through His soul ; and 
such is His calm of spirit and 
strength of feeling that He cries : " I 
and the Father are one." I adore 
His divinity, but I cannot fail to see 
that wherever a young man stands 
for justice, truth, honor, purity, and 
holds that corner of the universe 
against all intruders, he may say with 
a holy enthusiasm and a reverent 
ardor : " I and the Father are 
one;" one as to the importance 
of this great battle of principles, 
one in the thought of who shall 
succeed, one in the joy of the vic- 
tory. Brothers, let us claim no 
other young man as our champion 
and ideal. I see Him breasting every- 
thing and conquering everything, 
40 



Young Men in History 

because the heavens of His life had 
been opened at that baptism. 

Under the open heavens, in the 
fact of life's heavenwardness, I dis- 
cern also the rising consciousness of 
a young man's relation unto His race, 
Such a sky has His mind become 
that He sees the horizon- rim taking 
every man in. He feels that into 
His life pour the interests of His age, 

Like a forester with a newly 
sharpened ax he walks on, over 
fallen trees, and feels as he goes on, 
and the chips fly : " Behind me is 
a race wanting to get through these 
thickets ; I chop and chop away ; I 
chop for them ; I chop for every- 
body that ever shall walk this road ; 
they are coming behind me, and I go 
41 



Young Men in History 

on and on." Like Arnold Winkel- 
ried he feels that it is not simply his 
getting through, but it is the princi- 
ple which he champions which be- 
longs to humanity ; a single poor 
soldier, with the audacity of his 
principle, cries not, " Make way for 
Arnold Winkelried," but "Make 
way for liberty!" The open heav- 
ens are so vast that a man cannot be 
small. Under them he sees a race, 
and feels that when he conquers or 
himself at his best, he conquers also 
for humanity. 

But the poorest young man can- 
not feel his own dignity until he re- 
alizes how all the past makes him 
its heir and custodian. The past is al- 
ways dying. It is always saying — 
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Young Men in History 

when it feels the great canopy of 
eternity over it — " In the name of 
God, Amen," and forthwith, in such 
sacred air as this, it is giving its 
treasures into our hands. We are 
born heirs of the years and ages, 
with their results. And upon us 
also is saddled the work of the execu- 
tor of the will and the administra- 
tors of the estate. We ought to be 
wonderfully honest with past, pres- 
ent and future to do all this. And 
for my part, I see nothing but the 
consecration of our life to God, that 
shall make us fit to do this great 
work and fill this great office, 
u Heir, executor of the last will and 
testament, and the administrator of 
the past." 

43 



Young Men in History 

That is our dignified business, to 
settle with the great future the busi- 
ness of the great beneficiary, to ad- 
minister in truth and equity this 
great legacy. You carry it all with 
you ; with it you succeed or fail. 
Will you dare to load it on your 
back without the dove upon your 
forehead and the heavens all open 
under the throne of Jehovah ! It 
will break you down if you try to 
carry it alone. 

Only in the waves of such a con- 
secration as this can a young man 
have a safe and true idea of con- 
duct. To the music of that bap- 
tism, what a wretched and devilish 
discord is sin. Under the heavens 
opened up, so that you may see who 
44 



Young Men in History 

God is and what our life ought to 
be, what an infernal thing it is to 
soil our manhood, crush our possi- 
bilities, and ruin our souls. Every 
smallest duty has an infinite scope. 

All through the life that now is, 
flow out the land of the life to come 
rivers of Jordan, whose waters have 
divided the land which some Moses 
of the past had left, from that into 
which some Joshua had entered — 
great streams which have rolled be- 
tween the real and the ideal. Into 
one of these Jesus went, saying : 
"Suffer it to be so now." All the 
streams of the earth felt the break 
of Jordan's current by His baptism. 
Onward to the sea and gathered into 
the clouds, this baptism went into 
45 



Young Men in History 

the dew and rain, and at last fell 
again into the seas which refresh our 
planet. Its ripples still play along 
the coast as its significance has I 
broken against the shores of eter- I 
nity. It has revivified the conti- 
nents of mankind. It has passed 
through the shores into the center 
of the human soul. Its rhythm has 
come from coast to coast and begun 
a new music. Its flash, under God. 
has revealed new forces in light, and 
its broad ripple has become a wavt 
which tells of the depth of the wa- 
ter of life. To-day, let us ask some 
John if he will help us to " fulfill 
all righteousness," and let us seek in 
this baptism the opened heavens and 
the descending dove. 
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..L'BRARY OF CONGRESS 



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